“But they’re mighty useful to the natives—they hunt with them, use them for teams and, if they’re hard up, eat them.”
“Well, they look as if there’d be mighty little to eat on them,” declared Jim.
Taken altogether, there was not much to be seen, while the overpowering smell of fish which filled the entire village almost nauseated the boys, and they were mighty glad to be once more aboard the Narwhal.
In the afternoon the boat again went ashore and returned packed with Eskimo hands who had been signed on. The bundles of garments and other things were hoisted aboard, and with the Eskimos helping the crew at the capstan, the Narwhal’s anchor was hoisted, the sails were spread, and Hebron was left astern.
CHAPTER VI
THE BATTLE
Steadily, day after day, the Narwhal continued on her way northward. From morning until night—throughout the short night as well—bergs or floe ice were constantly in sight; but the boys had become accustomed to such things and scarcely gave the ice mountains a second glance. They had spent hours searching each berg or ice cake they passed, in the hopes of seeing another bear but, aside from an occasional seal or flocks of birds, not a living creature was seen.
The Eskimos, much to the boys’ surprise, proved splendid sailors. Always at the mastheads men were on the lookout for whales. At times the schooner wallowed slowly through the cold green seas, with barely enough wind to enable the captain to steer clear of jagged cakes or towering bergs. At other times, she tore storming through the tremendous waves under shortened sails, rushing between giant bergs, crashing into masses of drift ice hidden in the foam of breaking waves. Again she would rest motionless, becalmed, shrouded in dense fogs, while resounding through the impenetrable mist came the roar of surf on bergs, the crashing of falling ice masses, and the shrill screams of sea birds. Then every man was on the alert, peering with straining eyes into the blanket of fog. A dozen times the boys’ hearts seemed to skip a beat, as, close at hand, a vast white phantom loomed suddenly from the fog, and the Narwhal rocked and rolled to the backwash of the giant seas breaking upon ice. Again and again, too, the schooner drifted so dangerously close to a berg that boats were lowered and, straining at the oars, the men towed the heavy vessel clear.
“Funny thing, that,” remarked Mr. Kemp, as the Narwhal was thus being dragged from a towering berg. “Put two ships, or a berg and a ship, in the middle of the sea and the blamed things’ll drif’ together—jes as if they loved comp’ny.”